Here's the thing. You ARE allowed to say whatever the hell you want. However, whenever to whoever. By all means. you can say/do whatever you want through whatever medium you want. Sure it's not protected, but you can. There isn't limitation. There's consequence.

At some point, comedy is going to offend someone at some level. If you watch South Park, you know for a fact that they don't put restrictions (or prefer not to put restrictions). They make fun of everyone and everything.

Kanye's mom's character design in the trailer doesn't appear to have much to do with anything. The clip doesn't seem to acknowledge it at all, and the fish looking like a mammy has no payoff at any point. It plays less like an intentional poke at stereotypes and/or blackface and more like somebody got told to make Kanye's mom a fish, and that's just the depiction they went with for a black woman.

It's the same reason the 'gay fish' repetition falls kind of flat. HAHAHA GAY and HAHAHA BLACKFACE aren't funny in and of themselves, and neither are actually serving as a launching point for any actual joke. The one good joke in the trailer--the see you soon bit--functions completely separate from them. Changing the mom fish's character design wouldn't remove any of the actual humor from the scene. South Park does an insane amount of offensive stuff, but there's usually a point to it. There's no point here.

It didn't have to. But it's not Donda West. It's a fish. A black fish. It can be interpreted as Donda West. But it's not. It's their loophole. It's a fish. Not a person. Sure they have the actual meaning behind it, but it blatantly is not a person.

And yes, people have opinions. Being a brown person I understand that people have opinions. Humor has no limits as it is subjective. What I find funny differs from what you find funny.

Member

It didn't have to. But it's not Donda West. It's a fish. A black fish. It can be interpreted as Donda West. But it's not. It's their loophole. It's a fish. Not a person. Sure they have the actual meaning behind it, but it blatantly is not a person.

And yes, people have opinions. Being a brown person I understand that people have opinions. Humor has no limits as it is subjective. What I find funny differs from what you find funny.

Banned

It didn't have to. But it's not Donda West. It's a fish. A black fish. It can be interpreted as Donda West. But it's not. It's their loophole. It's a fish. Not a person. Sure they have the actual meaning behind it, but it blatantly is not a person.

And yes, people have opinions. Being a brown person I understand that people have opinions. Humor has no limits as it is subjective. What I find funny differs from what you find funny.

Member

IMO, the only thing even slightly funny was the "See you soon" reaction at the end. The fish sticks joke was funny the first time South Park did it, but having Kanye appear as a gay fish now seems to need too much thought to make as good of a reference as I think they were intending. The "making fun of dead mom's tribute" thing didn't make any sense to me at all and after looking into the context it's just unpleasant, not witty. Just seems like a really big fail.

Banned

It didn't have to. But it's not Donda West. It's a fish. A black fish. It can be interpreted as Donda West. But it's not. It's their loophole. It's a fish. Not a person. Sure they have the actual meaning behind it, but it blatantly is not a person.

And yes, people have opinions. Being a brown person I understand that people have opinions. Humor has no limits as it is subjective. What I find funny differs from what you find funny.

Member

It didn't have to. But it's not Donda West. It's a fish. A black fish. It can be interpreted as Donda West. But it's not. It's their loophole. It's a fish. Not a person. Sure they have the actual meaning behind it, but it blatantly is not a person.

And yes, people have opinions. Being a brown person I understand that people have opinions. Humor has no limits as it is subjective. What I find funny differs from what you find funny.

I don't know what "being a brown person" has anything to do with what follows in your quote. You can laugh at whatever you want to, but that doesn't mean that people don't get to question you on it - brown person or not.

Banned

It didn't have to. But it's not Donda West. It's a fish. A black fish. It can be interpreted as Donda West. But it's not. It's their loophole. It's a fish. Not a person. Sure they have the actual meaning behind it, but it blatantly is not a person.

And yes, people have opinions. Being a brown person I understand that people have opinions. Humor has no limits as it is subjective. What I find funny differs from what you find funny.

Member

South Park fans around the world are happy that SJWs are triggered. Sometimes Im baffled that people defend racist imagery with statements like But but they make fun of everyone!!!. And this only sets up a joke to after the inevitable Kanye Fish boss fight.

I for one look forward on how a southpark writer gets choked with a fishstick on Turbo Grafx 16.

Stick of Truth's abortion on a 9 year old boy: OK
Fractured But Whole's black fish: Not OK

Yes, on looking at it again I'll agree that the representation is in poor taste (but really, what isn't in South Park?), and I get that everyone has a "line" but I'm surprised that somebody who 'loved' the first game would be that put off by this sequence.

I enjoy South Park, but even I am confused by their choices here and understand why people are appalled by it.

Why did they make Kanye a fish instead of depicting him as Kanye West? To avoid legal troubles? Morgan Freeman is in the game as a vendor, so I don't know why Kanye is being depicted as an actual fish

Why is the fish representing his mother look like it's in Black Face? I didn't know what "mammy" was until this thread, but my only assumption is that since they don't really know much about Kanye's mother they just made some quick carciture of a black woman to act as a surrogate for her.

The only reasoning for the joke I can see is so that it is brutally mean spirited which South Park has done in the pas or additional context or reasoning was missed because the gameplay section was fast forwarded here. There isn't really much nuance to this asides from a brutal dig at Kanye.

So yeah, the only reason no one addresses it is because we can't. We literally only can say "It's just South Park being South Park" because there is no real reasoning in this section asides from being a dig at Kanye, and the show has done racist caricatures before.

So yeah, this isn't me trying to say people shouldn't be upset by this, because it is completely justified to find fault in this depiction. But I don't think any of us have a good explanation for why this is like this asides "This is South Park".

Member

Stick of Truth's abortion on a 9 year old boy: OK
Fractured But Whole's black fish: Not OK

Yes, on looking at it again I'll agree that the representation is in poor taste (but really, what isn't in South Park?), and I get that everyone has a "line" but I'm surprised that somebody who 'loved' the first game would be that put off by this sequence.

I mean, those are all fictional characters, you can kinda do whatever you want to fictional characters and get away with it.

I'm not comfortable with 1. mocking a dead person just because they're related to a celebrity and 2. using a very close to the bone racial illustration (for me personally the black fish is over the line, it looks like a Disney cartoon from the 30s)

I mean, those are all fictional characters, you can kinda do whatever you want to fictional characters and get away with it.

I'm not comfortable with 1. mocking a dead person just because they're related to a celebrity and 2. using a very close to the bone racial illustration (for me personally the black fish is over the line, it looks like a Disney cartoon from the 30s)

Yeah, I'm definitely not saying it's right, just that those reactions...

"Jesus Christ, Dave!"
"Just look at what you've drawn!"
"Even Walt Disney would think this was a bit far... it's racist as hell!"

Would probably seen as compliments in their animation department. They draw some pretty terrible stuff, and it's not always that far removed from real people. Issac Hayes for example was their friend and co-worker, and I'm not comfortable even linking a picture to how they drew his character's death.

Member

Geeze, that was disgusting. It's been a while since I watched but I used to be a HUGE South Park fan. As goofy as this will sound, even though it's South Park I always considered them above using something like "mammy" to tell a joke. At least when Matt and Trey were really on their games.

Not to mention the lazy homophobia and making fun of a person's dead mother.

Maybe they got the guy who made that thread about writing a South Parkish version of the bible to come up with these jokes?

maybe tomorrow it rains

I'm a fan of South Park, despite the last couple seasons being really rotten. I think this trailer is going to make me hold off on the game. I nearly pre-ordered it to get Stick of Truth, but if this is an indication of what type of humor they're going for then I'm not interested.

Banned

- He was hospitalized last year for what was well reported as a mental health episode

- Well-known history of public meltdowns, odd rants, and other 'outbursts'

- Postings on his now defunct twitter account often indicated some sort of mental health issue

- He is/was was working with his insurance company to cover the costs associated with the cancellation of his tour promoting his last album, on the basis that he had mental health issues and they were aware of the risks and liabilities.

- Kanye also has several songs where he speaks about the different medications he's taking, such as Lexapro. He also talks about having a psychiatrist too in several songs.

And as a personal aside, his behaviour and publically known issues line up with mine fairly well. I have diagnoses for mental health issues and less than a year ago spent time in a facility to help me deal with said issues. So I feel fairly comfortable with saying he has mental health struggles.

Banned

IMO, the only thing even slightly funny was the "See you soon" reaction at the end. The fish sticks joke was funny the first time South Park did it, but having Kanye appear as a gay fish now seems to need too much thought to make as good of a reference as I think they were intending. The "making fun of dead mom's tribute" thing didn't make any sense to me at all and after looking into the context it's just unpleasant, not witty. Just seems like a really big fail.

I am so out of the loop on all of this stuff. I know enough of Kayne West and his antics at the awards plus his links to Kim Kardashian. These type of people I don't follow or care to follow so I guess this trailer isn't really that funny to me. I loved the first game and look forward to playing this one but that trailer really lost me.

Member

I'm a fan of South Park, despite the last couple seasons being really rotten. I think this trailer is going to make me hold off on the game. I nearly pre-ordered it to get Stick of Truth, but if this is an indication of what type of humor they're going for then I'm not interested.